Chapter One: Robot's Best Friend
I hid away from then on…I had to. My dorm mates, who I had once called my friends, became no more than dorm mates. They didn't remember anything about me, and I new if they discovered I wasn't human it would cause a commotion. I stayed in my room and kept my head down during class. No one paid me any mind, and I didn't expect them to. I silently waited out the end of the world.
About two weeks after the betrayal, something I hadn't been expecting happened.
He walked into the common room with a sour look on his face. I had left the safety of my room for only a moment to get my math book, which I had left on the coffee table, and as I passed him I chanced a look at what was going on. Padding behind him sadly was a medium-sized white dog. He was wearing a torn white jacket and a cuff that said SEES on it.
Mitsuru-san was reading a book in one of the armchairs crowded into one side of the room. "Is that your dog?" She asked scornfully. He shook his head.
"It's mine!" I spoke up without thinking. Immediately I regretted it; it was the first thing I had said to any of them in weeks. The two of them stared at me as if they'd never seen me before in their lives. "H-He's mine." I repeated.
Mitsuru-san sniffed. "Dogs are not allowed in the dorm. You should know that, ah…Aigis."
"Yes, Senpai, I apologize. I will take him outside." Hurriedly I took the dog by the collar and led him out of the dorm, away from the accusing stares of my former friends. Once I thought we were safe, I released him. He didn't move, though. He only stared up at me with sorrowful red eyes.
"Do not look at me like that." I snapped. "You cannot stay here in the dorm anymore. You have to go back to the shrine."
Koromaru whimpered. "I don't want to go back there. It's lonely, and I miss everyone."
I blinked in surprise. Not because I could understand him; I'd always communicated with Koromaru this way. But he would only miss everyone if…"Koro-san, can you remember everything?"
His tail wagged. "Of course. How could I forget all the fun we had?" Then his ears drooped. "But they don't want me anymore. They never asked me if I wanted to fight or not, and then he went and betrayed us." I rested my hand on his head and rubbed his ears. Slowly, we started to walk away from the dorm, heading towards the shrine. He had no where else to go, however lonely it was at the shrine.
After a few moments of silence, Koromaru looked up at me again. "I'm going to die, aren't I, Aigis?"
For a moment, I hesitated, almost wanting to tell him no, Koro-san, you will be fine. But there was no point in hiding it from him. Koromaru was a dog, yes, but I knew he was just as intelligent as any human. The others had always treated him like a puppy, talking down to him and acting as if he wasn't fully aware of what was going on. I knew better, though. I'd had fully conversations with him, and you'd be surprised of how well Koromaru knew the world.
"Yes, Koromaru." I sighed. "When Nyx descends, you and everyone else will perish."
Another silence passed between us. Koromaru was watching the ground pass beneath him as we walked, lost in his own thoughts. I didn't mind, though. It was good to just be with another member of SEES who still remembered our journey through Tartarus.
The weather was cold that day, but of course I couldn't feel it. I would never be able to feel the chill of January or the warmth of spring, though spring would never come again. There were few people out and about that day, and those who were were bundled in heavy coats and hunched up against the freezing wind. They paid no mind to a young school girl and her dog out for an afternoon walk.
Suddenly Koromaru asked, "What about you?"
"What do you mean?"
"What will happen to you when Nyx comes?"
I had contemplated this constantly from the day we learned of Nyx's coming. As I was not technically alive, I couldn't be sure that I would die with the rest of the world. After all, how can something that is not alive die? Was I destined to wander the earth endlessly as the last self-conscious being? It was not an option I was too fond of.
"I don't know." I replied finally. "If Nyx does not destroy me, I will deactivate myself." It was a hard decision to make, but I would rather die with the rest of humanity than be immortal and alone.
Koromaru nodded sadly. "That's probably for the best." He rumbled. "At least you had the choice. All I can do is pray it's painless."
We let the rest of the journey go on in silence. Nothing more was needed to be said, after all. Both of us knew small talk was pointless; in a few months nothing would matter anymore. Instead we simply savored the company, each happy that we were no longer waiting out the end alone.
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You can pretty much count on all the chapters being pretty short. It's just going to be a very short story.
Anyway, it is never explicitly stated what happens to Koromaru when you chose to kill Ryoji on New Years. It's made obvious that Aigis still remembers everything; She's a robot, her memory doesn't work the way a human's does. But I'd like to think Koromaru gets to be special also. :3
